


An Excerpt From Calm Shores

by ArkadyFinch (ArkadyFlinch)



Category: Original Work
Genre: And this is from the story, Comfort, Fluff and Angst, I wrote a story inspired by The Shape of Water for Nano, M/M, Teratophillia, a boy and his fish monster, mentions of past rape, mentions of transphobia, merfolk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-18 19:11:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14219844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArkadyFlinch/pseuds/ArkadyFinch
Summary: It’s Quinn again but this time in his original work! The Deep was me looking at Quinn’s character and this is where he was originally created. They are similar but not connected.I wrote this story for Nano last year and while I didn’t quite produce a cohesive story I did produce a good outline for next year! Here’s one of my favorite excerpts!





	An Excerpt From Calm Shores

**Author's Note:**

> Tw for mentions of transphobia (no violence, no slurs) and mentions of rape.

They were still wet, but Quinn couldn't bring himself to care. The cool night air chilled their damp skin and passed right through him to his bones, but it wasn't quite cold enough to make him put more clothes on. Their midnight swim had been exhilarating, finally, he'd swum without fear of others or the things in the water. The apex predator had been with him in the water, splashing and letting out those voiceless, airy giggles that he'd grown to recognize.

  
Monk was intense and serious when they didn't know what was going on, but the second they were in the water Quinn had seen another side of them, happy, nearly carefree, moving through the water like a shark and grinning like one too.

Despite the shock value of those teeth he hadn't been too scared, more happy to have someone to play with. They'd dived and swum about in the inlet, hidden by a thick cloud cover and the darkness of night. The places on his skin where Monk had grabbed him to pull him through the water super-fast and had him diving deeper than he could on his own still felt...not warm, nothing about Monk was warm, but tingly. Hopefully they didn't have some weird skin toxin that would give him a rash later.

As much as Quinn loved to compare them to a fish they were amphibious in nature, though technically they didn't breathe through their skin, so he wasn't sure where classification left him on that issue.

  
He sat on the chair on the porch and looked at the fence that was now more than halfway finished. Thanks to Monk, he'd done it in half the time it would've taken him to do had his arm been healthy. Now Edith wouldn't have to see Quinn's guest and most of the bay won't either, at night at least.

  
They sat awkwardly in the chair next to him, spines and scales of their back keeping them from lounging all the way back, but they seemed eager to relax, just as he was. By the end of their swim they'd been drawing in air like they’d run a marathon, and by the short jerking motions of their mouth and chest he’d begun to worry they weren’t able to catch their breath above water. They slowly relaxed, though, even if they'd seemed lightheaded.

  
No doubt due to their injury and recent blood loss.

  
They were both a mess, and he was happy they'd found each other if only for a little while to be messes together.  
The stitching was doing good. It didn't look infected, even if the wound wasn't quite coagulating the same way a human's would. Their blood was red but the thick buildup on the gash was pale, almost clear, like the slick that coated their skin but hard and protective. The scales had mostly fallen out, leaving a bare patch of flesh thinly covered in skin. Or at least that's what he thought it was. Quinn was no scientist.

  
What was making their healing more apparent - or maybe they were just getting more comfortable with him? - was their attitude. They were still a on/off switch between bubbly and serious, but he could see them grinning more and more. Their face was less and less tense, and the way they relaxed showed a transformed person from the one he brought home a few days ago. Was it already three days?

  
Sometimes he even caught them with their secondary lid halfway over their eyes, which he recognized from extremely sleepy cats but was unsure of what it meant here. Sharks did the lid thing when they were biting to protect their eyes but as time passed Quinn was reminded more and more that Monk wasn't half-fish half-human. They were their own thing with weird gestures and body language that he was trying to learn in their short time together.  
Monk gestured to him, then signed, 'Look.'

  
He sat up straighter, giving them his full attention, then they signed, 'You want to know my past?'

Oh. Unexpected. Whenever this was brought up prior Monk had given him the cold shoulder.  
He signed back, eager, 'I can ask about it?'

Monk took a deep breath then let it out of their lips, nodding, eyes darting all over the porch before finally resting their not-quite-perfect-circle irises on him.

Black on black, two dark colors that were almost indistinguishable. He could see the slim ring where their iris was, a slip of gold in that darkness. The lights were off but the glo lights Monk was so fond of sat on the table casting flickering hues of color on them. The kitchen light was also on, casting half of their face in multi-colored shadow.

Before he could ask his questions Monk held up a hand, 'I want to tell you.'

His hands stilled and he nodded, allowing them to think. They knew sign pretty well, but some words still eluded them. He'd been helpful to update their vocabulary since they'd started signing at each other.

'Don't remember where I was born.'

Oh. That cut down a lot of his questions, actually. He frowned but nodded again. Their hands were still up, they had more to say.  
As they signed they watched their own hands, lips quirking in the ghost of expressions to go with the sign. 'Only remember being caught and taken to a tank. Needles and knives and eyes watching me.'

They paused, rubbing the junctures of their arms where the needle marks were. Blood drawing after blood drawing, ivs of who knew what, samples and samples and cuts and cuts. Quinn didn't know exactly where they'd been taken. But he could guess. He'd seen the movies. He saw the far away look in their eyes, foggy panic that had no real source.

'Escaped,' They signed, a shiver running up their back. He was lost for a moment in the movement of their muscles under their skin. Their scales moved like a snakes, and the motion flowed up into their gills, which flared briefly then settled flat against their neck. The spines on their arms flexed and relaxed, and their eyes did that double blink. They shifted their feet on the floor, and continued, 'Got out of tank, and ran and ran and ran. Found river, then swam until I found an ocean.'

  
Their eyes found his again and they looked worried, like he needed to understand this above all else, 'Killed only to get out. Didn't look back, fought and ran and fought. Swam south until in the islands.' Here they gestured around them, the Keys.

  
'Clear water, blue water, beautiful.'

 

Okay, maybe they'd been in the bahamas, but that was no easy swim from here to there. They'd been on the run until they'd hit the caribbean. There was no way of knowing how far north they'd been until they either learned to read a map or found the place where they'd escaped again. No way of knowing where they came from.

He felt a little put off, but it wasn't his to worry about. They were here now, and they were safe now. All else was in the past unless they wanted to bring it back.

'Hid under a dock. Empty most of the time, sometimes big boats came by to stay. Found a person. Old. White hair. Taught me to sign. Olivia.'

'How did you avoid being seen?'

'Lived under Olivia's dock. Olivia kept people away.'

Quinn nodded, giving them a smile when they got that lost look in their eyes again and their hands stuttered, half-forming signs as they thought of what to say. 'Olivia called me Monk. Fed me. Talked to me.'

Then the sighed, shoulders dropping, signing away from their body, trailing off with each motion. 'Olivia died. Dock was torn up. Had to leave.'

'Swam for a long time. Stayed by shore but went into open water too. So many boats. Fish hard to find. People in the water using tanks. Seen too many times to stay.'

 

Fishing season had driven them from the Bahamas then. Likely Mini-Season, people went rabid for spiny lobster. Hard to hide on the shelf where there was only shallows and reefs, with clear waters and only the occasional drop-off to hide from plain sight.  
Jesus, every summer choppers flew over popular beaches and reported how many sharks they could see, no doubt Monk was an easy target.

 

'Swam with a big ship.' They hesitated, signing 'big' a few times, as if trying to say something more.

Quinn pulled up his phone and pulled up a picture of a barge, turning it to show Monk, who shook their head. He did some more searching and found a cruise ship, at which they nodded excitedly. They pointed to the mouse ears atop the ship and clicked.

 

They watched him spell the word for them, and repeated the sign.

'Followed cruise ship up here and then storm. Big storm, confused, went to bay to wait it out. Was seen by hunter.' They pointed to their injuries then shrugged and signed, 'Then stuck here.'

Quinn nodded, thinking over what he'd been told. 'Thank you.'

Monk laughed, and signed back their trio of thank yous.

Then, he asked the question he'd been considering since they'd come to stay here. Since they'd started smiling again. 'What will you do when you are healthy?'

Monk's spines flexed and they looked at their feet, signing away from their chest. 'I don't know.'

'Can I tell you about me?'

When they looked back up they nodded, leaning forward on their legs, fins on their head flicking with interest.

'I was born with a family. Two parents and a sister.'

Monk seemed to know those terms, thankfully, so after a short pause he moved on.

'My dad left us. He packed a bag and walked out the door no matter how much we cried.'

Monks hand went up to trace a tear on their face, mirroring his sign, and Quinn quickly looked away from their face. Too human. Too damn human for anyone to have hurt them.

'I am like you,' he signed, 'Not man, not woman. A person. Sometimes a man, but not always.'

Monk nodded, accepting the sentence with such ease Quinn had to slam his hopes back down before he started thinking stupid. They probably had no concept of gender anyway. This meant nothing to them. They probably only thought in person and non-person, which was what he wanted, but not how he wanted them to come to that understanding. He grit his teeth and moved on. There was no time to explain gender to a fish.

'My family don't understand. Think I'm sick or crazy or a girl.'

'Why?'

The question caught him off guard, and he didn't know how to respond for a second. 'I look like a girl.'

Monk squinted at him, then their eyelids did that double-blink, then they shook their head, 'You look like Quinn.'

He had to swallow the laugh, or the sob, or whatever it was bubbling in his throat. 'They don't think that.'

Monk nodded, hands fluttering back down to their lap, while Quinn continued.

'I left home to study. To become someone strong. But I wasn't strong. My mind plays tricks on me, I see things, I can't sleep, I am angry a lot.' He hesitated, but Monk was nodding. They'd seen firsthand him reacting to hallucinations. He'd started asking them if they saw anything, or relied on them to react to whatever he thought he saw late at night.

'I had to come home. My family were mad. Pushed me away.' He jerked the signs from his fingers and threw them away from his chest, lip curling in disgust. 'They think me broken.'

He wasn't sure what to say next, so he let his hands fall and they fell into silence and inaction.  
Monk was still studying him, as if by looking hard at him they could see this 'boy' or 'girl' within him. He snorted and turned to look at the flickering glo lights settled on the table they shared.

They stomped the ground after a few minutes to get his attention, and signed, 'Broken? But not hurt?'

Quinn felt like he wasn't getting in enough air, and signed listlessly, 'Incomplete. Not a person.'

At that sign Monk perked up and signed back, hands quickly reaching for meaning between them, 'We are people. No one can take that from us.' They flashed their row of teeth, dark eyes narrowing in a smile even as their mouth settled back down into its resting frown, 'I won't let them.'

He choked up, caught by surprise both from Monk's words and his own well of emotions breaking free. He felt the tears, the heat in his face, the shame of crying, and swallowed it all down, forcing it back, forcing it to go away, but he was caught unaware by Monk yet again.

  
They were kneeling in front of him, hand on his knee. They looked concerned and his reassuring sob wasn't as reassuring as he'd hoped.

  
Their grip on his knee remained gentle, a soft squeeze every few moments while he cried. He grit his teeth and tried to hold back the rage, at least, but that too was unleashed in the ugliest bout of crying he'd had since before he'd gone on hormones.

This was his stupid brain again, his stupid sleep-deprived brain.

But it wasn't. He knew it. It was easier to blame himself than the hundreds of moments in his life where the people he loved had let him down without even being aware of it. If he tried to tell them, they'd explain it away, or wouldn't remember, or try to tell him he hadn't heard or understood them right. And, like always, his throat would close up and he wouldn't be able to defend himself even if his brain could work past the fear and the shame and the guilt enough to think using words again.

Monk didn't need words, though. They didn't want to hear the nature of his pain, they didn't need proof that he'd really been hurt to sympathize. They sat there and pat his leg and occasionally gave a small trill in the back of their throat while he cried and let out angry noises and muffled his screams in his hands.

He wasn't sure when the sobs stopped, only that they came and went, petering out in intensity until he was hiccuping and exhausted. Sometime during then and now Monk had sat on the ground beside him, head resting on his knee, hands petting his legs and drawing their claws along his skin and through his leg hair.  
They were vibrating against him, a low hum that he felt rather than heard. It wasn't a cats purr but it was numbing, and he felt the hum come and go with the rise and fall of their chest.

He was too sluggish to think of anything to fight. No panic to be found when he was too tired to think of all the ways he must look weak to the fish now. He merely sat there, feeling his puffy face cool in the night air, hands tugging on his hair which had dried into strands, thick and knotted.

They looked up at him after a moment and signed, slowly, 'You helped me. No one else did. Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.'

He sighed, nodding along with the slow petting of their hands, sniffling. He signed back, 'Thank you, thank you, thank you.'

They smiled, and he found enough energy to smile back at their toothy grin with their big black eyes. They stood up slightly, running their hands through his hair and giving him a cool kiss on his forehead. He closed his eyes as they tangled their claws in his hair, tugging at his hair and working the strands loose.  
The headache pounding behind his eyes didn't like the tugging, nor the implications of a kiss, so he just sighed and slowly pulled away, picking himself up piece by piece.

  
They followed him into the house, never stopping in touching him, whether it was resting their hand on his shoulder or bumping into him as he stumbled around the house to his room.  
They watched him carefully as he picked out his pajamas and he headed quickly for the bathroom, frowning as they followed him in.

  
'I need to shower.'

They tilted their head and motioned for him to go ahead, leaning against the wall.

Quinn stood there, too damn tired to explain to them what nudity meant, but also suspicious. He'd been the fool of this game before, but as he slowly stripped, feeling exposed and dreading the expected advances to come, but as he started a shower and stepped behind the curtain, they didn't move.

  
He didn't want to close his eyes, in case he missed some signal and lost his chance to say no - he knew better than this, he knew he could always say no, but that's not what had been spat in his face months ago when everything crumbled.  
He washed quickly, and when he opened the curtain Monk had opened the bathroom cabinet and was touching and examining everything, hardly giving him more than a glance as he dried off and got dressed.

  
They followed him again into his bedroom, and sat on the floor by his bed as he climbed in. When he turned to face them, they began again to untangle his hair, hum still reverberating in their chest.  
He sighed and signed, 'Thank you. Being here with me.'

They nodded and signed, 'I was lonely too.'

They didn't need to say anything as Quinn drifted off to sleep with their claws tracing soothing patterns on his scalp, with cold, soft lips pressing to his forehead, and with that deep bass hum filling the thick, oppressive air of the Florida night.

 

 


End file.
